Another Thursday, another flight. Looking like this Thursday is going to be a little different than my typical one. Around 4:00pm, I’ll be hopping in a car and driving down to Atlanta. Not going to be worrying about the delays out of the GSP airport or hopping a flight down to Florida. The only thing that I have to worry about is finding Melissa’s gate, and meeting up with her.

We’re heading to Vegas this evening and I’m damn excited. We’ve got lots of stuff planned for the weekend and it’s going to be nice to get away. We’ve got tickets to go and see Cirque, so that’s fairly high on my list of things to do as I’ve never seen them before. I think my excitement surrounding going to the Machine Gun shooting range has already been documented, but nevertheless, I’m still damn excited.

Work has been going pretty well recently and I certainly can’t complain. I got myself a nice little $10/hr raise, so that will be nice when that slightly higher income starts coming in. It’s been interesting running my own small business, but I think that I need to spend some time working on my finances a little bit. I’ve been lax in sending in my monthly taxes. Every says that the IRS is leniant the first year, but I’m going to get on that soon. It’s been difficult to set aside the time and get organized, but now that Melissa and I are all set in the new house, I should be able to carve out some time to do that.

Right now, Melissa is at home where the AT&T U-Verse guys are installing our new fiber based internet and TV. We’re pretty excited about it, but I’m skeptical about how well it’s going to work. We still have Comcast and frankly, we’re not really all that impressed with the performance of the Comcast service, so hopefully U-Verse will work out a little bit better.

All I have to do is make it through this week and this weekend, I’ll be in Vegas with the guys from work and various other folks, most importantly, Melissa. We’re going to be going to some cool shit, probably a Cirque show, a Machine Gun Shooting Range, indoor skydiving, etc. I’m really looking forward to getting away and having a fun filled weekend. Melissa and I have been charging forward with the house stuff trying to get things squared away before her grandmother comes to town in two-three weeks. This past weekend, I spent two hours mopping the floor…or actually scrubbing it as the case may be.  It looks much much better than it did, but I know that after two weeks of being away (when Melissa’s Grandmother is coming), it’s going to need another hearty mopping.

I was pretty excited about the coming weeks, as I was supposed to be going out to Denver for a software release. As it turns out, I may not get to go at all, or if I do get to go, it’ll only be for the first week of the release. One of the key reasons that I was so excited about going out there was to attend the Great American Beer Festival, which falls right when I would have been going.  As of currently, it’s not looking good. Oh well.

I’m going to bring my camera along to Vegas, so hopefully I’ll have some photos to post in the coming weeks.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a guy that I used to work with, and he was asking me how I went about starting up my business and how I dealt with the stress of being unemployed when I was laid off by my last company. I explained to him that after everything that I’d been through in my life, I’ve learned that things will work out. Maybe not always in an obvious way, but if you’re open to opportunities that present themselves, good things will come.

As you may recall, a few months ago, I started working for this small BI company as a freelance consultant. Well, yesterday, things took off and we’ve been granted (at least probably) granted an extension for the year. What this means for me is that I will a) be employed for the next year, b) making gobs of money, c) be running a team doing development, as the project will be growing in size d) making more gobs of money.

This road that I’m on in my professional career seems to be going to a good spot, so for the time being, I’m enjoying just riding the wave, and with any luck, I’ll achieve my 30 year goal.

Going along the same vein of thought, things are looking good in my personal life. Melissa and I are living in a great house, we’re steadily marching towards getting married and we’ve got some fun stuff planned in the next few months. This weekend, we’re planning on going to the Keys on Sunday to do some fishing and snorkling. We’ve got a trip to Vegas planned in a week or two. It’s all good stuff, and with all the turmoil that moving has caused, it’ll be a nice time.

Being that it’s Thursday, I’m looking forward to making my way to the airport and home shortly after that. Can’t wait.

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that my little company that I formed is going to probably stay viable for the next year at least. The bad news is that I’ll probably be stuck flying to Greenville, SC for the next year at least.

This morning, our project sponsor is going to meet up with one of the owners of the company that’s contracting me, and they are working on getting up to a year extension. I don’t know how long I’ll actually be tasked on the project, but I figure at least the next six months could be here. We have a project starting up (always “probably”) in Melbourne, FL, which, happens to be around 2 hours from my house. I’d like to be put on that project, as the idea of driving a quick 2 hours to get to work makes me a little giddy inside compared to the fun 6-7 hour airport debacle that I typically endure.

Things at the house are finally coming together and we’re really almost done getting everything squared away. The last remaining item that needs to be addressed is the multimedia in the living room. I’ve held off on doing anything about it as of yet, as we don’t have an appropriate media cabinet/hutch. For the past two weekends, Melissa and I have gone out and searched for something that would meet out needs but not obliterate our budget. We’ve found a few things that were on the upper end of the scale, so we’re still searching to find the perfect piece. I have a feeling that this weekend will be when we find what we’re looking for. I’m pretty excited about setting up all the media, as we have pre-wired surround sound, multi-room sound and even speaker hookups outside. I’ve actually got to look into getting some speakers for outside, as the only ones that I have aren’t really designed to work through hurricanes and the moisture of Florida.

Other than that, we’ve made good progress getting the office squared away by getting two L-shaped desks from the illustrious Office Depot. They aren’t the most amazing things ever, but for $120 a piece, you can’t really complain about an L-Shaped glass-topped desk. They look pretty good in there, so that’s what matters. We won’t have them forever, but they’ll serve the need while we’re kicking around in this house.

Work has been slow this week, so I’ve been able to sit here and write up this post, but while slow, I still have to get some stuff done.